The Game

The cold air that washed through the narrow doorway smelt of lions and greenery, alive and reassuring after our long passage through inert stone. We threaded our burden out, not bothering to lock the door, and when our eyes had adjusted from candlelight to moonlight, O’Hara squatted down and slung the maharaja easily over his shoulders. He followed me, with Goodheart behind him and Holmes bringing up the rear, as I picked my way forward, one hand brushing the wall of the lion house, until I saw the white gravel path.

Three more steps and I halted, sharply putting out one hand to keep O’Hara from treading on my heels. There seemed to be someone at the main junction of the paths some fifty feet ahead of us, just after the lion cage. I couldn’t see in detail, but my heart sank at the figure’s size: one of the zoo-keeping dwarfs. And that was the only way past the cage: He couldn’t miss seeing us. I turned to whisper to my companions that we would have to retreat, when the short, sharp whistle of a night bird rang out from behind my shoulder. In a panic, I slapped my hand over the maharaja’s mouth, but it was slack. Goodheart—? But then I looked back at the junction and saw the small figure running in our direction. Oddly silent, but for the quick patter of feet on the gravel.

A voice in my ear murmured, “My son.”

Bindra it was, his black eyes sparkling even in the moonlight, his entire body wriggling like a puppy with his own cleverness.

“What did you do with the horses?” I hissed at him.

“Nesbit sahib loosed himself and came, and said he would watch them. Oah, he is so very angry at the three of you, he says to tell you that he will have you locked into the Umballa cantonment. My father, who is this man?”

“His name is Goodheart,” O’Hara told him in English, then added in Hindi, “It remains to be seen if he lives up to his name.”

“If he does not, I will beat him,” the child declared. “But, my father, I do think we need to be gone from this place. A little time ago, four angry soldiers came running down the road, and three of them went back, then I heard some others on the big road that goes between the two hills. I think maybe they have found that you have carried away their master.”

“Hell,” I said. “That was quick. What now?”

“Which way did the others go on the road?” Holmes asked the boy.

“Down towards the valley, not the hills.”

South, then, towards Khanpur city.

“It’ll have to be the aeroplanes,” Holmes said decisively.

“But we cannot go between the stables and the lake. The ground is open, and there are birds nesting all along the waterfront, just waiting to raise an alarm.”

“Only one guard at the stables.”

“Plus the syces.”

“Russell, we waste time. Goodheart, take the maharaja. And if he makes a sound, you have my permission to bash his royal head in.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The white gravel guided us from the zoo to the steps leading up to the path encircling the hill. The soldiers Bindra had heard pass were nowhere to be seen, although we expected with every step to come across the one left behind at the stables. Tom Goodheart, accomplished as he might be in amateur dramatics, failed miserably at surreptitious passage, his boots finding every twig and patch of gravel. Well short of the entrance to the compound, O’Hara stopped us.

“Goodheart needs to remain here with the prince. My son and I will go ahead through the stables and locate the guard. Miss Russell ought to come with us, as she best knows the terrain. Mr Holmes, you perhaps should assist Goodheart, watching for the approach of trouble.” “Trouble” being either the royal guards or treachery from Goodheart, but no need to state it aloud. I caught the flash of O’Hara’s white grin. “Perhaps you can make the call of a bird if it comes?”

He did not wait for any of us to disagree, and indeed, there was little reason: Holmes did not know the stables and I did; someone had to stay with the loud-footed Goodheart until the way was declared clear. I touch Holmes’ sleeve in passing, for the reassuring solidity of the arm beneath, then led the two O’Hara men down the steps.

The domestic odours of hay and horse dung scrubbed the last reek of big cats from my nostrils as we descended towards the buildings. Before, I had followed the track through the grand archway and into the central yard, but I had also noticed a footway that wound around the back of the first block in the direction of the road. This was how we went, picking our way by the blue reflected light, pausing to look closely into each shadow that might hide a clever sentinel, lingering long before stepping across the narrow gap between two buildings. We found the path both clear and well illuminated by the huge moon moving down in the western sky, and walked its length all the way to the main road without seeing anyone.

Back at the stables, O’Hara leant towards us and whispered, “I shall remain here. My son, you stop at the break between the buildings to watch. Miss Russell, you bring the others. And—perhaps the American would make less of a hubbub were he to remove his boots.”

Bindra and I turned back, moving more quickly now that we’d been over the path once. He scurried in front, clearing the gap between the buildings with scarcely a glance. It was a mistake. I, two steps behind him, paid the price the instant I came even with the dark hole between the walls.

“Thahro! Kaun hain?” split the night, followed closely by the terrifying sound of a round being chambered. One did not need to speak the language to know the command to freeze: I froze.

And Bindra saved me, saved us all. Before I could do more than raise my hands in surrender, the child was at my side, mindless of the watchman’s gun, brisk and sure and heaven-sent.

“Tum kaun hain?” he demanded in return, his voice a fraction lower than its usual youthful tones: Who is that?

I thought he’d gone mad, and made to grab at his shoulders and dive for shelter but he moved too swiftly for me, striding openly down the narrow alleyway, talking all the while as my brain slowly squeezed out a translation.

“Are you the guard here?” he was asking. “Why was there only one left behind? Where are the others?”

His assumption of authority gave the other pause, and I belatedly realised that a resident of The Forts would be more apt to believe in an officious dwarf than someone in the outer world. I couldn’t see if the man’s finger loosed on his trigger, but I could feel it, could hear the loud tension in his voice give way to argument and, in less than a minute, irritation. No, he was here alone, and no, he’d had no such order, to wake the syces and send them to the Old Fort. Bindra took another step in his direction, hands on hips now and voice taking on an edge of incredulity.

And then there came a dull crack, and the guard’s tirade was cut short in the sound of a falling body.

“My son, that was done well,” came the low voice. “Go now.”

We went, fast. Just not fast enough.

The rumour of approaching turmoil reached me at the same instant a bird-call floated down from the road. Bindra whistled sharply in reply, and we met the others on the steps, Goodheart in his stocking feet and Holmes with the prisoner slung across his shoulders. Bindra led them down the path at a run, I brought up the rear, my shoulder blades crawling with the sounds of half a dozen heavy men trotting rapidly down the road: They would be upon us in minutes.

At the stables entrance, O’Hara waved Holmes and Goodheart towards the main road, but made no sign of joining us.

“What are you doing?” I demanded in a whisper.

“My son and I will make a distraction with the horses. You take your gun to make certain Goodheart does not forget the controls of the aeroplane.”

“You can’t stay here. They’ll kill you.”

“If they catch us, they may try. But they will not catch us.”

“I can’t leave you here. What would Nesbit say?”

“Nesbit would say you are wasting what little time you have been given,” he answered, his voice calm.